1. Field of the Invention
The invention is related to the field of communications, and in particular, to caller identification.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In a telephone system, a caller can establish a connection to a called party. Originally, a telephone system did not identify the caller to the called party. In order to know the identity of the caller, the called party had no option other than answering the call. This had the disadvantage of not allowing the called party to decide whether to take to call. The called party in some circumstances might not want to take the call. In addition, the called party may not be prepared to talk to the caller, and there may be delay or confusion at the beginning of the conversation as the called party establishes the identity of the caller.
An improvement in the prior art is caller ID. In a caller ID system, the telephone system identifies the caller, and provides the caller's identification to the called party. The caller's identification includes the caller's telephone number, and can additionally include an account holder name, a company name, etc., that is registered to that telephone number. The caller's identification is displayed on the called party's telephone (or on a connected caller ID unit). This is an improvement, as it allows the called party to likely identify the caller, and may allow the called party to mentally prepare for conversation.
However, the caller ID system of the prior art also has disadvantages. The caller ID system merely provides the caller's registered identification to the called party. The called party may not be able to identify the caller from registered caller information, such as in the case of a call from an unknown person. The caller may still be relatively anonymous. In addition, the telephone number provided by caller ID merely identifies telephone owner's name (i.e., the account holder's name) and the telephone device used to make the call, and does not identify the actual caller if the actual caller is different than the telephone owner.
Furthermore, the prior art caller ID system cannot be controlled or configured by the caller, except that the caller can choose to disable the caller ID function. Moreover, the prior art caller ID system cannot provide personalized or flexible identification information.